I always have thought about going into talking about some more jolly topics but I just didn’t manage to do so. Today, this strong urge of writing a new post comes from my helplessness. Let’s not talk about what triggered me into feeling this way. I have been busy actually so my mind was supposed to be quite occupied. Since I was back to the U.K., I did two exams already and now still busy with revision. Yet you know, with people like me who just tend to over-think, I have come to recall a past unpleasant memory and I felt helpless; I could not change what happened.

我一直在想談論一些更加快樂的話題，但我又做不成了。 今天寫這個新帖子的強烈衝動來自於我的無助感。 不要談論什麼觸發了我這感覺了。 實際上我一直很忙，所以我的腦袋應該被佔據得滿滿的。 自從我回到英國以來，我已經考了兩次考試，現在還在忙於溫習。 然而，你知道，像我這樣的人，傾向於過度思考，我回想起過去不愉快的記憶，我感到好無奈; 我不能改變發生了的事。

I was under certain arrangement to be ‘kept sheltered’ at a family for school policy reasons when I was a child/teenager; the boarding school I went to took holidays from time to time. As a result, I would be sent to this family each time during school holiday. The family was actually some kind of acquaintance, or kind of friend to my family and the whole wide world expected me to be very well taken care of. Instead, the family had certain issues among the family member themselves and each time when something that displeased the hostess happened, there would be an arrow pointing at me, and once even at my mother when she took a short stay there.

當我是一個小孩／青少年時，某種安排下，其實因為出於學校政策的原因，寄宿學校不時休假，我就寄住在別人家裡。 因此，我每次在學校假期都會被送到這個家庭。 這個家庭其實是熟人，或者是我的家人的朋友吧，所以整個世界的人都覺得我會得到很好的照顧。 相反，他們家庭成員自己有一些問題。每當遇到女主人有事情發生的時候，都會有一個矛頭指向我，有次我母親在那短暫逗留的時候也是如此。

So this arrow was an arrow named ACCUSATION, and I learnt to apologise each time when I was accused even though I was not at fault. Once the hostess lost something, she came up to me suspecting me to be the thief until the item concerned was found. Once a furniture was broken, and I became the suspect again. When I was sick, the family did not take me to the doctor immediately but asked me to wait till the day they decided appropriate to do so. The food that I had was also different from what the family had. I would get separate food from what she could eat with her children. Today, I still do not understand why her children would not talk to me at all or never invited me to join them to play games, and I still do not understand why during dinner, the family together would not even chatter a bit.

所以這個矛頭是一個名為「指責」的矛頭。每當我被指控時，即使我沒有錯，我都會道歉。有次女主人失去了一些東西，她懷疑我是小偷，直到找到那東西。 有次家具壞了，我再次成為嫌疑人。 當我生病的時候，他們家的人沒有立即帶我去看醫生，但是要求我等到他們決定這樣做的那一天才去見醫生。 我所吃的食物也和他們的食物不同。 我吃的，和她和她的的孩子吃的食物不一樣。 今天，我還是不明白為什麼她的孩子不會跟我說話，或者從來沒有邀請我加入她們玩遊戲，而我還是不明白為什麼在晚餐時間裡，一家人一起不會聊天。

I eventually had the chance to move to a truly caring and welcoming family, who would offer me to eat the same dishes cooked together at the same dining table, chatting as we were all eating, giving me a lift to town centre if I wanted to do shopping, took me to a doctor immediately when I said I fell sick, invited me to join their family activities.

我最終有機會搬到一個真正關心人和熱情的家庭。他們會讓我吃同樣的菜，在同一個餐桌上，聊天吃飯，如果我想購物就會駕車送我到市中心。而當我說我生病時，也立即帶我去看醫生，也有請我參加他們的家庭活動。

If I could change one thing in the past, I would change my attitude. I used to think that if I spoke up against the first family that I stayed with, I would lose my shelter, get kicked out of the door and die in the windy cold weather outdoor. I chose to stay timid but what should I truly uphold? Courage. I should take the courage to speak up and stood up against my family’s decision about my stay at the first family immediately. Having always been too afraid to face my hostess, I failed to defend my mother when she was verbally accused. I am sorry to my mother even today and I feel that I cannot make up for the humiliation she received. My mother is a very traditional woman who is not usually used to take on criticisms, and she received the words that she failed to teach her daughter good behaviour. I remember I was shouting in my heart, ‘don’t take your turn on her but on me’. I was a grown up at the time and I could not avoid her from suffering the verbal attack. You may say, come on, words don’t bite. Err, if you have to bear with words like that regularly, they do bite hard.

如果我能改變一件事情，我會改變我的態度。我曾經認為，如果我跟我第一個家的人訴說我的不滿，我會失去住所，被踢出門，在室外多風又寒冷的天氣中死亡。我選擇保持膽怯，但我應該真正堅持甚麼呢？勇氣。我應該勇於發言，立即反對我家人決定我住在那家庭。我一直以來都害怕面對女主人，當我被口頭指控時，我沒有捍衛我的母親。今天，我還是對我的母親感到對不起，我覺得我不能彌補她收到的羞辱。我的母親是一個非常傳統的女人，常不習慣接受批評，她卻收到了她沒有教她女兒良好行為的話。我記得我在我的心里大叫，「別攻擊她，攻擊我好了」。我當時已長大了，但我無法避免她遭受口頭的攻擊。你可以說，come on，話語不咬人的。呃，如果你必須經常忍受這樣的話，話語就會咬人。

Past is the past, but it is by recalling this past memory that I had this light bulb moment; I come to discover why sometimes, I just say ‘I am sorry, please forgive me’ when something happened that was not related to me being at fault, just like I did for the noise pollution mentioned in my last post.

過去就是過去，但是回想起這個過去的記憶，我有這個「燈泡」的時刻; 我了解到為什麼有時候，我說「對不起，請原諒我」，而發生的事情與我無關，就像我在上一篇帖文中提到的噪音污染一樣。

At last, I hope my readers do not think that I am playing around with my emotions or living in the past. I hope we all have the courage to speak up when we need to, as if not, we may have regretted for being a coward, like I did. Memories do not just go away, especially negative memories, whether a person has a mental sickness or not.

最後，我希望我的讀者不要以為我在過去的情緒裡生活或鬧情緒。 我希望我們都有勇氣在我們需要的時候說人話，沒有，我們可能會像我一樣做了懦夫，感到遺憾。就算一個人是否患有精神疾病，記憶不能消失，尤其是負面的回憶。

Am I moaning? Oh certainly yes. I am just expressing my desire to live a life with greater freedom from now on, as this is what I did not have before I became an adult. I am not going to get sheltered under a family or a certain adult, but to be sheltered at home. Deep down, I would like to ask those who have once made fun of my mental sickness two things. First, have you experienced my life in the eyes of a child? Second, is your action at work to earn money an expression to acquire a better life which is likened to my desire to a better, but precisely, a care-free life?

我在抱怨嗎？哦，肯定是的。我只是表達了我渴望從現在起生活得更自由，因為這是我成為一個成年人之前沒有的。 我不會依靠在一個家庭或一個成年人身上得到庇護，而是在家裡被庇護。 心裡的我想問，那些曾經對我的精神疾病嘲笑的人，有兩件事情要問。 首先，你是否有在小孩的眼裡體驗過我的生活？ 第二，你去上班的行動為了賺錢是一個表達，想獲得一個更美好的生活，這和我也想要更美好的生活，我的是自由，不相似嗎？